ENCINITAS  The law firm that unsuccessfully sued to end a yoga program in the Encinitas Union School District earlier this year is appealing the court decision that allowed the practice to continue.

Dean Broyles of the Escondido-based National Center for Law & Policy attracted worldwide attention when he sued the district on behalf of parents who saw the Encinitas school yoga program as religious and in violation of laws about the separation of church and state.

San Diego Superior Court Judge John Meyer ruled in July that while yoga itself is religious, the school district’s version of it is not.

On Wednesday, Broyles said that Meyers had revised his view last month when he wrote in his decision that the yoga poses practiced in physical education classes at the district are identical to poses of a style of yoga called Ashtanga.

The Jois Foundation, which teaches Ashtanga yoga, gave the district about $2 million to create a yoga program for its P.E. classes. The foundation since has changed its name to the Sonima Foundation.

District officials defended the school yoga program as a secular physical activity with no religious elements. Broyles argued that yoga practiced by the district still was religious, and one of his witnesses said Ashtanga was the most religious of all forms of yoga.

Broyles said the appeal may not be heard until mid to late next year, but he predicted it would be successful if the appellate court “neutrally applies well-established First Amendment legal principles to EUSD’s religious yoga program.”

He also said he is ready to take the fight to the state and even federal Supreme Court if necessary.

Encinitas Union School District Superintendent Tim Baird said he was not surprised to hear about the appeal, adding that he expected Meyer’s decision to stand.